Francisca Duarte (

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

, 1595 –

Gest Alkmaar Gest may refer to: * A type of story or adventure * Gest (surname) * GEST Songs of Newfoundland and Labrador popular on-line archive (See Music of Newfoundland and Labrador) * Gothenburg English Studio Theatre Gothenburg English Studio Theatre ( ...

, 1640) was a Portuguese singer. She was active as a court singer at the court of the governor in the Spanish Netherlands. She was the daughter of the banker and jeweler Diego Duarte (1545? -1628) and Leonora Duarte Rodrigues (1565? -1632?), Jewish converts to Catholicism who emigrated from Portugal to the Spanish Netherlands, and married Francisco Ferdinand du Pas (1586-1646) in 1613. She settled in Alkmaar, where she became acquainted with Maria Tesselschade Visscher, who introduced her to artistic circles, where she was noted to be a great singer, and became the muse of poets. From 1630 onward, she acted as court singer at the court of the general governor of the Spanish Netherlands,

Isabella Clara Eugenia Isabella Clara Eugenia ( es, link=no, Isabel Clara Eugenia; 12 August 1566 – 1 December 1633), sometimes referred to as Clara Isabella Eugenia, was sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands in the Low Countries and the north of modern France with ...

and then Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria. In 1638, for example, she performed to the exiled

Maria de Medici Marie de' Medici (french: link=no, Marie de Médicis, it, link=no, Maria de' Medici; 26 April 1575 – 3 July 1642) was Queen of France and Navarre as the second wife of King Henry IV of France of the House of Bourbon, and Regent of the Kingd ...

. Duarte was famous in contemporary Europe and the subject of poetic celebration for her song.

References

* http://www.historici.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/DVN/lemmata/data/Duarte * Gerdien van Gorp, Duarte, Francisca, in: Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland. URL: http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/Duarte 3/01/2014 1595 births 1640 deaths Musicians of the Spanish Netherlands 17th-century women singers Belgian Sephardi Jews {{Portugal-singer-stub